1. Field of the Art
This disclosure is generally related to electrical battery control systems, and more specifically to supplying battery management systems that can model a solid-state battery (e.g., conversion chemistry positive electrode including an electrochemical cell), possibly employing conversion materials in the positive electrode, and providing state of charge and power limit information in real-time.
2. Background
Recently, with the shortage of fossil-fuels and an increasing awareness of the adverse environmental effects from consuming fossil-fuels, public and private sectors have researched alternative and environmentally friendly technologies for storing and delivering energy, some of which include rechargeable batteries (i.e., secondary batteries, e.g., traction batteries). While many types of rechargeable batteries have been developed, the respective advantages and disadvantages of each type has prevented the widespread commercialization of rechargeable batteries in many applications, particularly automotive applications (e.g., electric and hybrid vehicles), in part due to an inability to tailor and manage the energy and power for a given battery to a given application.
The suitability of a particular battery type(s) for a commercial application depends on the battery's physical and performance characteristics as well as the cost of the constituent materials and the associated methods of assembly. For automotive (e.g., electric and hybrid vehicles) applications, high power and energy capacity, wide voltage operation range, and mechanical durability are all desirable characteristics, but unfortunately many conventional battery devices are insufficient in at least one of these respects for current and future automotive demands. For electric automobiles, batteries should demonstrate both high energy density for long range driving and also high instantaneous power output for acceleration and/or braking scenarios. What can be critical to this demonstration is a battery management system that can accurately and efficiently determine energy and power capabilities of a pack of battery cells as well as control the charging and discharging of these cells to achieve certain threshold energy and power performance.
Lithium batteries with a solid-state electrolyte, as opposed to a liquid electrolyte, offer the promise of high energy capacity batteries that are safer (nonflammable) than current state of the art batteries. Unfortunately, such batteries tend to have a limited instantaneous power output capacity in certain conditions. This attribute may prevent their acceptance in the mass automobile market that demands acceptable vehicle performance in all temperature extremes.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop new systems and techniques for using solid-state rechargeable batteries.